Kiwi EPL showdown disappoints as Reid injured

FRED WOODCOCK

Last updated 10:10 02/10/2012

Getty

INJURED: Winston Reid is given treatment during the game against QPR.

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New Zealand football fans anticipating the first English Premier League match featuring a Kiwi on both teams would have been disappointed.

West Ham United's All Whites defender Winston Reid played just 23 minutes of the Loftus Road fixture against Ryan Nelsen's Queens Park Rangers this morning (NZT), before a head knock forced him from the field for the rest of the match.

Reid was accidentally struck by a flailing arm from his own goalkeeper, Jussi Jaaskelainen, as both players went for the ball from a defensive corner.

The New Zealander was treated on the field before walking off in something of a dazed state. He was immediately substituted by James Tomkins, possibly a precautionary measure from the team's medical staff given Reid suffered a concussion earlier this year.

West Ham were 1-0 up at the time and they went on to win the London derby 2-1, consigning All Whites captain Nelsen's QPR outfit to their fourth defeat from six EPL matches.

Their two points come from two draws, leaving them bottom of the 20-team league, while newly promoted West Ham are seventh with a record of three wins, two draws and a loss.

Reid made seven appearances for West Ham in his rookie premier league season in 2010-11 where he encountered Nelsen once - indirectly. Nelsen, who is now in his eighth EPL season and with his third club, scored for Blackburn Rovers in a 1-1 draw with the Hammers at Blackburn, but Reid watched from the substitutes bench.

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